10 Things Breaking Bad Has Actually Gotten Wrong

10 Things Breaking Bad Has Actually Gotten Wrong

Breaking Bad is known for its airtight plotting and attention to technical details. Here at Slate, it’s been called “TV’s Best Medical Drama Ever” for its realism, and The New Yorker has called its depiction of the meth trade “uncannily accurate.” The show’s scientific advisor, chemistry professor Donna Nelson, frequentlygivesinterviews about the science behind the show, bolstering its reputation for verisimilitude.

But it’s worth remembering that at the end of the day Breaking Bad is still pulp (anyone who thinks otherwise is on meth), and pulp written and produced by human beings. Below, we’ve rounded up 10 of the blunders that keep the show from quite achieving flawlessness.

The Terrible Spanish accents amount to perhaps the most egregious flaw in the show. Really, they couldn’t find actors who actually speak Spanish? Gus’s accent was one of the worst—it didn’t sound remotely Chilean, and in fact it barely sounded like Spanish at all—and he was one of the most important characters on the show! Misplaced intonations, random pauses, choppy flow… it was one of the most unintentionally awkward Spanish accents I’ve heard on television, and not for lack of competition.

In one of the show’s most climactic moments, the standoff at the end of “To’hajiilee,” eight gunmen all take aim, unleash a firestorm of bullets, and all miss. This is improbable at best. While the accuracy rate of trained law enforcement can drop as low as 18 percent in firefights, scores if not hundreds of shots were fired before anyone got hit.

In Season 1, Jesse smokes meth and has an elaborate hallucination: He sees two Mormon missionaries as hulking bikers armed with a sword.

Photo still courtesy AMC.

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But as former meth addict and dealer James Salant pointed out in GQ, “Meth does not induce hallucinations. It is not a hallucinogen.”

10. The chemistry doesn’t always add up.

Photo still courtesy AMC.

Scientific errors go all the way back to the pilot, as chemist Jonathan Hare pointed out for the BBC:

In one scene, in their makeshift mobile meth lab out in the desert, Walt is being threatened by two gangsters. He improvises a method to gas them by throwing red phosphorus into hot water. … He later explains to Jesse that this reaction produced poisonous phosphine gas. Red phosphorus can react with hydrogen to produce phosphine—but not with hot water.

Of course, since Breaking Bad is pulp, perhaps it’s OK for it to make up its own laws of chemistry.